Since there are three levels of friendship–causal, close and committed–it should be our goal to move as many friendships as humanly possible from a causal to a committed friendship. There is means that there are at least 10 things that each of us can and should do in nurturing a friendship grow.

1. Recognize you need friends. It’s the first step that leads to better and more secure friendships.

Look for others in need of a friend. This may mean reaching out to people whom you might otherwise pass over.

Ask God to bring a faithful friend into your life.

Be approachable by smiling at others. At times, I’ve been to that I look stern when I’m not aware of my expression. This means to me that I must be more aware and adjust my facial expression.

Speak to others by name. Learn names and say the name often.

Listen attentively to others. Look at the face of the speaker and keep your eyes on the face of the person speaking.

Give genuine compliments and encouragement. Ge caught noticing the good things in a person.

Ask open-ended question. Is your daughter feeling better? How is the job?

Help others verbalize their feelings. You don’t seem quite yourself today, are you feeling all right?

Look for the kernel of truth in your friends’ criticism.

I’ve learned a great deal about friendship living within the mentally challenged community. In general, these are people who give of themselves without reserve to people they preceive as an authority figure. With the slightest encouragement, you become their friend for life. Yet, shifting on the other foot, they find interacting with their peer may be more difficult. Within Special Gathering, which is a ministry within the mentally challenged community, we endeavor to help our members establish valued and long-lasting friendship with their peers.

Prayer is an eternal mystery that haunts even the most devote warrior in God’s kingdom. For Frances, prayer was her bread and drink. She spent her days and nights in supplication to the Lord. I earnestly believe that it was the prayers of Frances that turned our nation back to the Lord in a great way in the late 1950’s and 1960’s.

Of course there were many others who also prayed and sought God but I experienced first-hand the result of Frances’ ministry. I sat under her teaching and walked hand in hand with her during her times of struggle. I also saw her confidence in prayer. I rejoiced in what God was accomplishing through the hours spend listening, speaking, loving and even wrestling with a holy God.

While TV pundents often proclaim that everyone was stoned during those decades, there was an underground movement that consisted of late teens and young adults whose hearts pled for God to change them and our nation. My husband and I were part that movement–the Jesus Movement. We led a vibrant and holy group of teenagers whose sole ambition was to find a deep relationship with Jesus. They gathered under tents and in churches. They fasted and held all night prayer meetings.

While the focus beamed on the teens and the other young men and women who led this army of teenagers, it was the matrons and masters of prayer–such as Frances–who had plowed the ground, planted the seed and rejoiced in the harvest. Their battle was hard-fought. They struggled and wrestled with the enemy of our souls on their knees, weeping, laughing and facing that dreaded enemy with grace, courage and valor. The power of the Holy Spirit never failed them. The Father’s love always embraced them and assured them that his great destiny would save even the most horrible reprobate.

These prayer warriors didn’t possess the advantages of social media, blogs or the Internet but their prayers had world-wide and lasting effects. Somehow, Christian leaders from around the world heard about Frances and came to her humble home for prayer. They delighted in staying in the home of Frances and her husband. eating her food, laughing and enjoying fellowship long into the night. But they came for prayer–recognizing her vital connection to God that brought success in ministry.

Few of us have been given the grace Frances possessed in determined, steadfast prayer. Yet, all of us can seek God with the grace God has given to us. Frances died stubbornly, without fanfare. She resisted death even after her strength and vigor had been long spent. I asked her oldest daughter, “Why does she struggle, resisting death so strongly?” She believed that Frances clung to a desire to be on earth when the Lord returned.

Was this woman of God perfect? No! Was she a warrior who helped to change the world for Christ? Yes!

Introduction– Bring branch from the jassmine vine. Tell about the other one getting killed in the storm. I was sad because it was beautiful and large and provided shade for the back yard. Do you think a man of God should be more concerned about a dead plant or a city like Vero Beach (Melbourne), Florida?

I. Have a member read II Peter 3:9

A. Tell the story of Jonah.

B. Show a dead plant.

C. Jonah wanted God to kill all the people in the city. However, he was so angry when the plant that had grown over night had died that he said he wanted to die.

II. God is patient with everyone.

A. He does not want anyone to have an unhappy life or die without Him.

1. Tell about getting angry with some people who were spreading terrible gossip about you. At times you wanted them to disappear. I didn’t really want them to die but I wished they would just be gone.

2. God helped me to love them because he loves them.

B. This is how God helps me be patient with people I don’t want to be patient with.

1. God can help me remember that he loves that person as much as he loves me.

2. God can help me find good things about that person.

3. God can help me love that person when they are not with me.

A. Many times when we are not with a person, we think about what the other person did or said and then we get angry.

It is probably true that you will be asked to do a funeral for one of your members at some time in your ministry. There are specific things which I have observed from pastors who are successfully able to capture the essence of the person and still glorify Christ in a funeral sermon or eulogy. Here are some of those things which you may find helpful.

First, find a hook. This is something about the person that seems to embody their personality or mission in life. It may be a phrase, a sentence or an observation. Most often this should come from the family. In trying to find a hook for one man that I had never met, every person I spoke to said, “He was a good man.” I kept trying to find something else about this man until I realized: This was a truly good man and that was what family wanted to said about him.

Interview as many members of the family as possible to be able to grasp what is meaningful to them. Ask probing questions. What is the thing you remember most about Phil? What did he do during his free time? Tell me a little bit about his life. When did he become a Christian?

Everyone has some humor in his or her life. Try to find it and use it.

The deepest, most moving memories are best wrapped with a glimmer of humor, if possible.

Don’t be afraid to share deeply personal things that the family has given you permission to share. This is a time for them to hear their words echoing back to them in a positive message of hope.

If the person is not a Christian, amplify some good traits. Then emphasis that if she could stand before you today, she would want each person present to know Christ. We know this is a true statement without saying things which are not true.

Use a Thesaurus in finding different words to express what you want to say. Don’t limit yourself or your imagination in your sentence structure or your vocabulary.

Use Scriptures to say the things you desire to say about the resurrection. Then don’t forget to speak about the hope of the resurrection of Christ in each sermon or eulogy. That, after all, is why we have sermons at funerals.

Keep it short. Limit yourself to a maximum of 10 minutes of sermon. I also try to limit the Scripture readings to five to 10 minutes. Intersperse the Scriptures throughout the service. Find my favorite Scriptures here.

Remember, above all, you are speaking the heart of the family and the heart of Christ. When the two are in harmony, it’s a wonderful union. When they are divergent, God will help you to find ways to honor both.

God loves the broken hearted and desires to heal those who grieve. It is a wonderful opportunity to show the love of Christ to people who are wounded and hurting.

If you are sharing with a family of a mentally challenged person who has died, this is especially important to remember and acknowledge their grief. God wants to touch this family in a real way and you can be His instrument.

Here is a eulogy that hopefully will help you to see how these steps can be put together.

Eulogy

Leslie Ann

The Apostle Paul writes in the Holy Scriptures that the joy of the Lord is our strength. Proverbs reminds us that a merry heart is as good as any medicine. On December 19, 1972, God gave to us an ambassador of laugher and giggles when Leslie Ann was born to Priscilla.

Raised in a strong Catholic family, faith and commitment to the Lord were the backbone of her existence. As a natural outgrowth of that love for the Lord, her first communion was a joyous time shared with her mother, grandparents, her Uncle Jack, his two children and the community of believers.

Later, as Leslie matured into adulthood, reaching out became an anchor of her commitment to the Lord as she endeavored to share her faith. Each Christmas at Special Gathering, we collect gifts for the Haitian children. Leslie was the first one to bring her gifts. But she didn’t stop there. Sunday after Sunday, she would bring toys and school supplies for the young children who have so little.

Of course, Leslie understood the value of money. The best presents she received were always money or gift cards. No birthday was complete without a card filled with big bucks. Yet, she never totally comprehended the complete concept. After obtaining her first job came the wondrous first paycheck. Excited by this new found wealth, Leslie wanted to put it in the bank as the first installment toward buying a new Corvette. Somehow the fact that it was only $4 escaped this young financier.

Leslie had a knack for remembering names and addresses. She remembered the full name of everyone she met. But phone numbers were her specialty. She spent hours on the phone with her various boyfriends. Mark from New Jersey was her first real boyfriend. For more than ten years, they conversed every evening until it was time for them to go to bed. Last July, when Leslie and her mother went back to Jersey, Mark begged them to come back in the spring because he needed a date to the prom. “You know my girl’s down there with you,” Mark told Priscilla pensively.

Though she seldom complained, at times her disability would hinder her from doing the fun activities that the other family members enjoyed. One day, Elaine, her step-sister-in-law, could no longer take her mournful expression as the other young adults scooted around on jet skis.

“I’ll take you,” Elaine volunteered. Leslie was in her mid-twenties but not too old to giggle. Unfortunately, in her enthusiasm, Leslie leaned too far and tipped over the jet ski. In an effort to save herself, Leslie quickly grasped the closest thing to her–which was Elaine’s throat.

Her mother was following her in a boat. She and the driver of the boat scooped Leslie up from the water within a few seconds. And Elaine is still thankful.

Leslie never liked being left behind. And she didn’t like losing when she played games. After her great nephew, Colin, was born, she would spend hours coloring and playing games with him. He was her little buddy. But her competitive nature didn’t die easily and she didn’t enjoy losing, even to him.

Vincent, Colin’s dad and her cousin, was two years younger than she. He, naturally, was her big buddy. As children the cousins etched together a life-long bond. They spent hours building towers with blocks. After the construction was felled, they would head for the hallway and a ball game. For Leslie, the fun with Vincent was never in the game or the competition but in the giggling.

About ten years ago, after moving from Jersey, Leslie began attending Special Gathering. Later, she joined the choir. Her commitment to the choir was remarkable and we came to lean heavily on her strong–though never pitch-perfect–voice.

Every Saturday evening, she’d ask her mom, “Do I need to wear my choir uniform to Special Gathering?” Her mom would explain that the choir wasn’t singing at another church, only practicing. “Are you sure?” Leslie would enquire suspiciously.

One of Leslie’s favorite songs was a selection from our choir. Often before practice, we would sing it as our prayer.

Change my heart, Oh, God.

Make it ever true

Change my heart, Oh, God,

May I be like you.

You are the potter, I am the clay

Mold me and make me.

This is what I pray.

Change my heart, Oh, God.

Make it ever true.

Change my heart, Oh, God.

May I be like you

As Leslie slipped into eternity last Saturday, I believe she met the Lord giggling. You see, her disability and pains are gone. She isn‘t hurting or afraid anymore. (show the crystal bowl and the paper cup)

On the Friday evening that Leslie was admitted to the hospital, she was in agonizing pain. Her stomach had ripped and her lungs were full of pneumonia. She would code three times before they could get her into surgery. Fighting frantically to save her life, the technician began taking X-rays. Explaining to her what they were doing, the tech said, “We are going to hold up this piece of metal and take your picture.”

Leslie weakly nodded her understanding. As the technician put up the metal sheet to her chest, ready to click the X-ray, Leslie said, “Cheese” and grinned for the picture. With each X-ray she said, “Cheese” and smiled. As we remember Christ’s ambassador of giggles, we cannot weep for her, though we will often shed tears for ourselves. She would demand that we gratefully grin and say, “Cheese.”

My learning philosophy with pretty much every project is that I endeavor is to learn as much as I need so I can do the job and leave the other stuff to people who compose, fix and invent things. That is especially true with the computer. As examples, I don’t have to have all the music memorized to lead the choir in their first rehearsal of a song and I don’t need to understand the transfer of electrical currents to turn on a light switch. Usually, my life philosophy serves me will. That is until I try to invade a world where I need to understand more than I know. Like blogging.

Our executive director gave me a wonderful gift after I’d been blogging for about a month. It’s a manual on blogging. Excited and happy, I immediately started reading it. I underlined and tried to memorize as I went along. You see, after a time of blogging, I realized that I know so little about the Internet and it’s terminology that I don’t even know what I don’t know. That, of course, means that I don’t know enough about what I’m doing to know what I need to know. Therefore, by ability to learn is hampered because I need to know how to do what I need to know. If you are confused by all this, imagine how I feel.

After a few hours of reading my rich treasure manual, I needed to put it down–for a few days. This was a fatal mistake. When I picked it up again, I’d forgotten to mark the page I was last reading but that didn’t matter to me at the time. Because I’d underlined key passages as I went along. I was confident that I could find my way back to my place. The only problem. I somehow didn’t remember one thing I had read. I needed to begin from page one.

The acronoms were particularly troublesome. I could not remember even one of them. This time reading through I wrote out each acronym that I came to. Therefore, I was not only remembering what the acronym means but I’ll understand the sentence better. My philosophy in reading is the Lemony Snicket Theorywhich is similar to my life philosophy. I skip the words I don’t understand and usually the context of the material will help me to understand the sentence and the words I didn’t understand. This is not true in blogging.

While I’m into my fifth year of blogging, it has been only one year since I’ve become confortable inserting pictures. In the process, WordPress, the website that hosts my blog has made adding photos much easier. Additionally, I’ve learned to find my pictures from Google Image. Then I download them onto my desktop and then use them in my blog.

Jesus said that we should never begin a blog unless we understand enough about the Internet so we can estimate the amount of time it will take us to complete each daily article and draw traffic to our web entry. Sure, I am paraphrasing but you get the point. I’m not a quitter but I sure wish I could sleep through the learning process, the way my choir often sleeps through rehearsals.

As I venture into a fresh project, I find I have much in common with my mentally challenged members. It’s easy for me to lose interest in the new things as they become more complicated. But that is childish, not child-like. Struggle helps us to learn and survive. Forcing, Nancy and Lucy, members of the choir, to stay awake while we’re doing the hard work of rehearsal is beneficial. Likewise, rereading those first four chapters will embed them into my brain.

Have you found, like me, that you are sometimes enthused to start a new project only to become totally disinterested when it’s a bit harder than you anticipated? Is it possible that we are more like members of my special needs choir, than we are different?

Each week at Special Gathering, we teach the Scriptures two times and two ways. First, we teach in a devotional format where the entire group gathers. Of course, this is much like a sermon. Then we teach in a smaller classroom setting.

Obviously, preparing a teaching for the classroom is different from preparing a devotion. At Special Gathering, we have done a good deal of work in how to prepare and present a sermon to people who are mentally challenged. We have prepared several videos that you can view on our website.

Teaching a class with ten to 12 students can be even more challenging than teaching a larger group. Here are

some pointers that you should remember as you begin to prepare.

Don’t under prepare or over prepare. Study three times the amount of time that you will teach. A 15 minute teaching requires 45 minutes. One hour, three hours of study.

Mentally challenged people (and everyone else) learn by continual repetition. Reteaching the same lesson that was taught or will be taught for devotion on the same day will only reinforce the Biblical principle. Don’t shy away from teaching the same lesson. This seems to be the hardest lesson for Bible teachers within our community to learn.

Reading the lesson to my class is NEVER acceptable. It is harder to learn the lessons so that I can teach it without reading it. However, the benefits to me are greater than the benefits to my class.

Be sure to include daily applications in the lesson that give practical benefit to applying God’s word to life.

If you desire to have the students participate by having them read the lesson, do not have them read from the curriculum. Read from the Bible passage from which the lesson is taken.

Be sure that every student participates each time you teach. This is not only a good practice, it keeps folks awake.

Ask the class questions that are simple to understand and answer. Don’t try to trick the members.

Expect your class to answer the questions.

Somehow, reward the students who reward by assuring them that they have answered correctly. Every one of Laura’s answers is “Jesus.” I ask her questions that will give me that answer. She loves to participate.

Allow the Holy Spirit to take over the class. His invasion can come in the form of a prayer, a prayer request, an answer to a question or a thousand different ways. Give way to the Lord if he desire to touch hearts.

Don’t allow one or two people to monopolize the class time by answering all the questions.

This list is only a precursor to the nuts and bolts of how to prepare a lesson. There is more to come. To be continued on Monday…

What do you think is important in teaching a class? What is the optimum size class? What is the maximum size class?

Several times each week, I would take one or all of my children on foot, crossing the busy five-lane A1A Highway to the ocean. Each time, I would instruct them. “Stop. Look both ways. Listen. And do not EVER run across a busy highway.”

Once we had gotten through the traffic; and we were safely on the other side, I would explain. “If you run, you may fall. If you fall, you will not be able get up; and a car will hit you. Before you begin to cross the highway, always be certain that there is enough room between the cars that you don’t have to run.”

These were the same instructions my mother and father had given to my sister, brother and me when we had to navigate across the bustling Dorchester Road in Charleston Heights, SC. My parents owned an ice cream parlor in a small strip mall; and we often had to walk to their work. Mother’s instructions echoed in our minds so accurately that when we were old enough to walk with my older sister and without our parents, we would tell each other how to cross before we stepped off the curb onto the buzzing street.

Now, many decades later, it was such good advice that I’m still giving myself the same instructions about many areas in my life. In more detail, here are steps you can take to eliminate many stressful situations.

Stop! Take a break. Whether you are pressing too hard to complete a garden project, preparing to host a social event or trying to meet a pending deadline, taking a break will enhance your productivity and increase your ability to concentrate. Thereby, your stress level will be reduced.

Look far beyond the immediate situation. Continually look at your life and at your goals. To cross a bustling highway, you must understand the patterns of traffic. This takes times of examination. To understand what God has planned for you. Daily evaluation and observations is essential.

Listen! Observing the flow of traffic for a highway and in your life takes all your senses. Listen to the Lord, your critics and your friends.

Don’t run. Only people who are insecure about their ability to cross a busy highway attempt to run across the street. Running dramatically elevates your chance of failure. You increase your stress level–not lower it–when you are in a hurry. Be sure that you have the time needed to complete tasks. Then and only then, proceed. Tripping and falling in the middle of a project spells disaster and increases the strain on your body and mind.

Years ago when I was learning to hear the voice of the Lord, a respected teacher and older friend told me, “Linda, God has an eternity to accomplish His good work in you. He doesn’t push us. If I feel extreme inner pressure, I stop. Then I seek God to truly hear from Him. God isn’t in a hurry.” That day my stress level decreased sustantially. Each time I remember her wisdom, I’m blessed by lower stress levels and God’s peace.